But a spokesperson for the charity said the position articulated by its deputy chief operations officer at a council meeting recently is not its current policy.
Jo Whittall, the deputy chief operations officer of Clúid – Ireland’s largest housing charity – said it would like in future to sell off some social homes it owns to private buyers.
“We’re a charity, we’re not a private organisation,” said Whittall, speaking at a meeting of councillors for the North Central Area on 23 March. “We won’t be selling properties for profit.”
But where the charity has older properties that are too expensive to maintain or are damaged by construction defects, they would like to sell those homes on the private market, he said.
Fianna Fáil Councillor Deirdre Heney, who chairs the council’s housing committee, jumped in. “You want to give them back to the city council?”
“If you want them. But we would rather sell them privately,” said Whittall. “Give them to someone else to sort out, and then we can use that money to build good social.”
A spokesperson for Clúid – asked how many homes it wants to sell and where, and what would happen to tenants – said that isn’t on the cards.
“We are committed to providing quality social and affordable housing and services to enable people to create homes and thriving communities,” said the spokesperson.
“We have no plans to dispose of our social or affordable housing stock to the private market,” they said.
Still, some public representatives worry at the hint of talk of sell-offs, they said, casting glances over to London, where housing charities sold up in high-value neighbourhoods causing the mass displacement of working-class communities.
In January 2020 – as councillors debated the future of old council depot sites – independent Councillor Cieran Perry flagged concerns about how much land that the council was transferring to housing charities.
What if they move to sell off social housing privately, as happened in the United Kingdom? he asked.
In London, working-class communities had been displaced by such sales. The housing association Genesis has pivoted away from supplying social and affordable homes, and morphed into supplying shared-ownership and market-rate housing.
On Wednesday, Perry said that once the council gifts land to a housing charity, it loses control of that land.
He worries that working-class communities in his central Dublin constituency could then be displaced, he said.
“We’ve already seen that happening in Britain and this could be the start of something similar happening here in Ireland,” said Perry.
“It certainly calls into question the council’s process for disposing of land to the AHBs [approved housing bodies, or housing charities],” he said.
Sinn Féin TD and housing spokesperson Eoin Ó Broin said this week that, “These homes were funded with taxpayers' money with the purpose of providing good quality social homes in all parts of the city and country.”
“Under no circumstances should the government countenance allowing any approved housing body to sell its stock privately,” he said.
The government should instead come up with a scheme to fund the regeneration of older social homes that need work, he said.
A spokesperson for the Department of Housing said that, “It is a matter of general policy that AHB homes developed for social housing purposes are retained as such.”
“The AHB sector has consistently affirmed its commitment to the long-term retention of publicly funded social housing stock,” he said.
However, it is legally possible for housing charities to sell social homes, said the department spokesperson.
“Subsequent to the completion of the terms and agreement of any state funding, the AHB is the sole owner of a property and may technically dispose of a property,” says the spokesperson. “Once the proceeds of the sale are applied for the furtherance of its Charitable objects.”
At the North Central Area Committee meeting, Whittall of Clúid said that it would re-invest in building social homes elsewhere, which would be in line with the objective of providing social and affordable housing.
Ó Broin said the state funds housing charities to provide social housing under several schemes.
It depends on the scheme, as to whether the charity does have the legal right to sell the homes, he said.
Under the Capital Loan and Subsidy Scheme, the state provided a loan to the housing charity for the full cost of building the home and didn’t retain any equity in the property, he says.
That scheme kicked off in 1991 and was popular until around 2010, he says. At the moment, many of those homes are coming to the end of their loans, he says.
Once the housing charity pays off the loan, it is the full legal owner. At this stage the charity could legally sell the home, said Ó Broin.
A Department of Housing report from September 2023 struggled to pin down exactly how many housing charity homes were fully paid off.
The high value of land in Dublin’s city centre has long been a source of concern for long-standing inner-city residents.
“People don’t realise that we are being pushed out of the city,” said Derek Nibbs, back in January 2022.
“They don’t want the people from these areas,” said Nibbs. “Because the land is too valuable.”
In other jurisdictions, housing charities have made bad decisions which undermined public-housing stock, says Ó Broin. “We should not go down this route.”
For what Whittall proposed in the council meeting to make sense, the housing charity needs to sell an old home for enough to build a brand new one, he says.
That can only happen if they sell a home in a more desirable area like the city centre, he said.
Ó Broin said there is an issue with funding for maintenance and regeneration of homes under the Capital Loan and Subsidy Scheme. Because the state doesn’t currently provide funding for that, he said.
In 2022, the sum needed to bridge the gap between the rental income and maintenance costs was, on average, €2,817 per home per year, said the Department of Housing report.
“There does need to be a conversation, as AHB stock gets older, about how that is maintained, and what is the funding mechanism for that?” he said
Clúid should work with public representatives to look for solutions to renovate these homes, not look to sell them, said Ó Broin.
“Under no circumstances would Sinn Féin ever support the sale of publicly funded public homes into the private sector and especially the private rental sector,” he said.
“Do you see a situation where you are going to sell to the private market?” Heney, the Fianna Fáil councillor asked at the meeting.
“Only where it makes the most viable economic sense,” said Whittall. “That allows us to invest it in property that is more economical to run.”
Still, a spokesperson for Clúid said it isn’t doing that.
“As a not-for-profit housing association, Clúid is driven by our social mission,” she says. It doesn’t plan to sell any of its social homes and is increasing social and affordable provision.”
“We are on track to deliver over 1,000 homes in 2026 – our fifth year in a row of delivering more than 1,000 homes,” said the spokesperson.
A report of the Approved Housing Body’s Strategic Forum – set up by the department to review the sector’s role – which was published last year outlines its guiding principles for the future.
Homes should be retained as “social or cost rental in perpetuity (where need prevails and it makes economic sense)”, it says.
Homes could move from social to affordable tenure too “in circumstances where it is fair and makes sense”, it says.
The sector should become self-reliant, it says. So “funding and income streams can sustain ongoing delivery and maintenance on a sustainable basis (lessening the involvement of the State over time)”.
Perry, the independent councillor, said he wants to know for sure whether any homes have been sold on land that was given to approved housing bodies by Dublin City Council, on the understanding that that land for homes for social tenants on housing lists.
In some parts of Ranelagh, his father was known as Tutty, in others as Pom Pom. She was simply Sheila.
The council bought the mill in 2018, and spent €2 million on stabilisation works. Lately, locals have noticed the project seems to have stalled.
A spokesperson for the board said it redacted accounts that weren’t “evidence-based” and had not tried to “hide or trivialise the scale of any crisis”.
“I feel like, if I don’t vote [for it], I’m voting against housing. If I do vote, I’m voting against greenbelt.”
